Page Content (OCR)
213 stating (to the brother and sister of Moses) that "if there be a prophet among you"—a person chosen to convey God's word—"I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision and will speak unto him in a dream." The significance of the statement is enhanced by the precision of the wording: In a vision Yahweh makes himself known, recognizable, visi- ble; in a dream he makes himself heard, granting oracles. Informative in this regard is the tale in I Samuel chapter 28. Saul, the Israelite king, faced a crucial battle with the Philistines. The Prophet Samuel, who on Yahweh's command had anointed Saul king and had provided him with the Lord's word, has died. The apprehensive Saul is trying to obtain divine guidance on his own; but although he had "inquired of Yahweh" "both by dreams and by omens and by prophets," Yahweh did not respond. In this instance, dreams are listed as the first or foremost method of divine communication; omens—celestial signs or unusual terrestrial occurrences— and oracles, divine words through prophets, follow. The manner in which Samuel himself had been chosen to become a Prophet of Yahweh also hinges on the use of dream for divine communication. It was a sequence of three "the- ophany dreams" in which scholars, such as Robert K. Gnuse (The Dream Theophany of Samuel), find remarkable parallels to the three dreams-cum-awakenings of Gilgamesh. We have already mentioned how Samuel's mother, unable to bear children, promised to dedicate the child to Yahweh if she be blessed with a son. Keeping her vow, the mother brought the boy to Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept in a temporary shrine under the supervision of Eli the Priest. But since Eli's sons were lewd and promiscuous, Yahweh decided to choose the pious Samuel as successor to Eli. It was a time, we read in I Samuel 3:1, when "the word of Yahweh was seldom heard and a vision was not frequent." And it came to pass on that day that Eli was lying in his usual place, and his eyes began to wax dim and he could not see. The lamp of Elohim did not yet go out; and Samuel was lying in the sanctuary Royal Dreams, Fateful Oracles occurrences—